Voice onset time (VOT) is an important parameter of speech that denotes the time interval between consonant onset and the onset of low-frequency periodicity generated by rhythmic vocal cord vibration. Voiced stop consonants (/b/, /g/, and /d/) in syllable initial position are characterized by short VOTs, whereas unvoiced stop consonants (/p/, /k/, and t/) contain prolonged VOTs. As the VOT is i...

Many phonetics textbooks state that, in sequences of two stop consonants in English, the first stop is commonly unreleased. For nonhomorganic stop consonant sequences, this statement may be taken to imply that the (necessary) articulatory release of the first stop has no observable acoustic consequences. To examine this claim, we recorded sentences, produced by several native speakers of Americ...

In studies of production and second language acquisition, it is typically assumed that when speakers produce a vowel between the consonants in a sequence that is phonotactically illegal in the native langauge, it is a result of the phonological epenthesis of a vowel (e.g. Tarone 1987, Broselow and Finer 1991, Hancin-Bhatt and Bhatt 1998, Davidson, Jusczyk and Smolensky 2003). For example, Taron...